Light in the Darkness

by CJ Brightley

  Pulling my dark green knit cap down to my eyebrows, and safe in the knowledge that I’d mudded my face earlier, I ghost-footed along the roof, listening from window to window.

  Dicing . . . an argument about a horse . . . two people angry at a third person called ‘Morith’ . . . discussion of a meal . . . three people complaining about some slacker . . . nothing, nothing, nothing.

  I hopped down to the tiled awning over the back door, and landed in a tiny courtyard beside the stable, sending chickens squawking and scolding. I hopped their low fence and pressed against the wall. There was so much noise in the kitchen that no one seemed to have heard the chickens protesting my intrusion. So, watching constantly in both directions, I began slinking below windows . . .

  . . . and heard one of the voices from upstairs join a group below-stairs.

  “. . . agrees with me, why should these wolves think they can order us around?”

  A man with a deep voice said, “I’ve been asking the same thing. Since when does a duchess outrank a king?”

  Duchess?

  “Morith thinks she’s a queen,” a woman cracked, causing a room full of laughter.

  The laughter cut off abruptly, as if someone had shut a door. I hazarded a quick peek at the corner of the window, hopping on my toes. The room beyond seemed to be a recreational chamber for the guards. Everybody in it faced an inner door, which had been opened.

  Four people in gray riding tunics trimmed with dark red entered, fanning out in a row, hands to weapons.

  “You had something to say about the Duchess of Thann?” the eldest, a gray-haired man with a pointy beard, spoke into the sudden silence.

  “Whatever I said was not intended for any ears but those of my compatriots,” a black-haired woman stated, her own gauntleted hand resting on the hilt of her sword.

  “It is as well,” Gray-beard replied in a slow drawl. “Or I might have something to say that is intended for all ears, which you might not care to hear.”

  “And if I do not,” the woman retorted. “I know what I might do, which you might not care to feel.”

  The shivery sound of her blade sliding out of its sheath was broken by a new voice. “Now, now, my friends and compatriots! Are we not all enjoined to follow our chiefs’ orders? Surely we can find plenty of brigands and criminals on which to practice our skills, rather than one another.” And after a pause, the man said in a harder voice, “Can we not?”

  “Yes, captain,” the woman muttered, and rammed her sword back into its sheath.

  “And my friends from Thann? I trust you will forgive any mis-heard words, like reasonable people, and join me in a glass of spice-wine? I happen to have a bottle of the best, set by for special occasions. Surely, your riding on your mission in our territory constitutes a special occasion?”

  “Thank you. Permit me to gather the rest of my command, so that I might issue tomorrow’s orders. Then we shall rejoin you.” I leaped up again, to see Gray-beard make a hand gesture, then back through the door and turn to the left.

  As a clump of grays who had hitherto been unseen started toward the door, watched covertly by the Liacz company, I hastily backed away from the square of golden light spilling in the courtyard, and scrambled up to the tiled awning just as the door opened below me.

  I flattened myself on the top of the awning as a dozen pairs of riding boots clattered below. Raising my head cautiously, I peered down as Gray-beard looked from left to right, and the rest of them did, as well: wall, stable, fenced-off chicken yard. No people in sight.

  Except me. But nobody thought to look up.

  Gray-beard said, “Well, you’ve heard the reports. They insist our target isn’t here.”

  His tone of irony caused mutters among his group, the most audible voice saying, “And they looked so hard.”

  “It is not their pursuit,” Gray-beard stated, shrugging. “It’s not to be expected they will match our diligence. So. This I am sure of: if our target is in this town, he will not want to stay long . . .”

  He?

  “. . . Either he or the Hrethan.”

  “Do you think they are together, then?” someone asked.

  Gray-beard shrugged. “It is possible. I received a communication this morning from Fara Bay that the Hrethan rescued the scribe from Prince Geric. So we can assume that they would travel together if they found one another.” He began pointing at his people, dividing them into groups of three. “Therefore. Before dawn, you are to be watching the three roads out of town. I myself will watch the dock, in the unlikelihood they take a boat to cross the lake. Keep yourselves hidden, and refresh yourselves with the description. Stop anyone you have to, on any excuse you deem reasonable. The Hrethan is also a mage, so you’d better take her by surprise, and immobilize her without hurting her. She is worth a great deal, the duchess says, and any who find her will share in half the price.” His voice changed. “The scribe, you may damage as much as you wish. The duchess wants him alive, but I did not get the impression she cares how much.”

  A rumbling chuckle ran through the group, then the leader nodded at the lone person who hadn’t been appointed to one of the search parties. “You’ll ride to Keshad and hand my report to the duchess. All right, people. You have your orders.”

  They parted, some laughing.

  I lay where I was, terrified they could hear the pounding of my heart, until the courtyard was empty. Then once again, I slithered down, ghosted over the chicken wall, and away. As I leaped from rooftop to rooftop, I wondered if I should waken Hlanan.

  But when I got to our window, I discovered steady light. I climbed in to find Hlanan fully dressed, with a new candle on the table. He was busy writing a letter.

  When I slipped through the window, he looked up, his mouth a thin line, his eyes marked with exhaustion, his high forehead tense with worry.

  His face lengthened in relief. “You’re back.”

  “They’re after us both,” I said, and told him where I’d been.

  At the end, he gave a short nod. “We’d better leave now.”

  “What about the search for a mage to transport us? Scrying?”

  “While I was procuring our locksmith aprons, I asked questions here and there. According to local gossip, the town has several charlatans selling luck charms and the like, and only one real mage, mainly concerned with reinforcing rooftops and cleaning water. Doesn’t scry. And even if he could, I’d have to find out what level he is, and if he is Council-sworn. If he’s first-level, that is, the most common, there is a chance he could scry for us, then turn around and sell what he heard to whoever asks.”

  “So no scrying, then. Or should we get a water glass and try?”

  “Do you think you can keep Dhes-Andis out?”

  “No,” I admitted. “Not sure at all.”

  He gave a short nod. “I think it’s time to leave.”

  “Are we just running, or do you have a destination in mind?”

  “We?” he repeated. “So you want to stay together?”

  I shrugged, surprised. “Do you want to go alone?”

  “Not at all. I like your company,” he said, and he flashed a grin. “It’s just that I don’t want to assume anything on the part of a Hrethan who can kill me with her brain.”

  Surprised, I snorted a laugh. “Hardly. I’ve only done that mind-cast thing twice, and the first time made me sick for a day after. When I tried it on you, it made me even sicker. Maybe the other Hrethan are good at it, but I wouldn’t say it’s a skill I know well.”

  “Other Hrethan can’t do it at all. Unless they are keeping it secret. I’ve been told that only a few have those talents. So, if you’re with me, then let’s get going. Keshad is at least a couple days away, if I remember the map aright.”

  “Keshad?”

  His grin flashed wider. “The capital. Morith of Thann never leaves her citadel on the highest mountain in Thann. Or hasn’t until now. Don’t you want to find out what she’s up to?”

  I s
tared at him, distracted by the glint of ruddy gold along his still-unshaven chin, his tangled hair, unbrushed since it dried from the rain-washing the previous evening, the tunic he’d pulled on so hastily that the lacings hung loose, revealing the line of his collarbone on one side. He certainly did not look like a clerk’s assistant now.

  “Why not?” I said.

  21

  “Is your knapsack ready?”

  I picked it and the cloak off the floor. “Ready.”

  He blew out the candle, and to my surprise, pushed it into my fingers. “Since I had to pay for an entire candle, we may as well keep it. I made up some story about a missing lock for which I had to search, but I could see they were suspicious. I wish you’d let me know you were going out to scout . . . but yes, I fell asleep. Well, well. Can you see now? Shall I take the first turn carrying the knapsack?”

  “Sure,” I said, to both questions, as I tucked the candle in beside the diamond necklace.

  “Then lead the way,” he said, shrugging the knapsack over his shoulders. “No, not through the door. We don’t want anyone downstairs seeing us leave. In fact, if the innkeeper thinks we are still asleep, and keeps any search party down below waiting for us to descend, so much the better.”

  Moving carefully, because he was not as small or as agile as I, he followed me out onto the roof, along the edge, and down.

  And then, as the rest of the town quieted into slumber—except for guards, thieves, and bakers—we made our way as noiselessly as possible to the east side of town, and then, careful to move parallel to the road, we set out walking as Little Moon dipped low on the horizon, and behind us, half of Big Moon arced lazily on the other side of the sky. The balmy air smelled sweet; somewhere in the vicinity grew a citrus orchard.

  As soon as the silhouette of the last house was well behind us, I said, “I can understand why that duchess wants me unharmed. Dhes-Andis won’t give anyone a reward for a dead Hrethan. But the things they said about you make it sound like she is carrying a grudge.”

  “I suspect she is.”

  “Against you?”

  “Against me.”

  “You told me what you and Thianra discovered, but you didn’t tell me about your first encounter with her.”

  “It didn’t seem important at the time.”

  “Now we have nothing but time. And a long trudge ahead, for I don’t hear any horses in the vicinity. Not loose ones. How did you first know this duchess?”

  “I was very young. Very callow. Thought I was smarter than anyone else. Subsequently I found out that the sort of fellow I was is her favorite prey.”

  “Prey?” I asked, sniffing the air. We were passing someone’s garden.

  “I met her by accident. I thought. This was when the Council assigned me to work my half year as an assistant, when I was almost seventeen. Harbor mage in Akerik, at Enlee Bay, on the east coat. Beautiful city. When I think back, it’s embarrassing, how easy I was to beguile . . . she admired me so much, thought me so learned for my age, so comely. And, oh, she just wanted help with an old curiosity she’d happened upon. She was a collector of such, she said. Could I translate it? Sure I could, proud of my prowess, until I discovered that the scrap of paper she happened upon was a spell of blood magery.”

  “I don’t know what that is.”

  “You don’t want to know what that is,” Hlanan said grimly. “But if you did know, you’d understand why Thesreve kills mages.”

  My innards tightened with bad memory.

  He took a few steps in silence, as if he were thinking, too. “Anyway, in horror I earnestly told her what it was. She professed to be astonished, but I could see that she wasn’t.”

  “She wanted you to translate evil spells for her?”

  “I think she was leading up to that. At first I tried to make excuses for her, but it didn’t take long to discover that she was wooing a young scribe at the same time that she had been dazzling me. He told me she thought him comely, and learned for his age, and he was so very clever, could he sneak into a Council archive?”

  All I could see of Hlanan was his profile outlined against the brilliant stars, but I could hear an undertone, almost a roughness, like hurt. Then he laughed, as if it were no matter, so very long ago. “A salutary lesson! There are few things more gullible than young boys who enter the world thinking themselves comely, learned, and more clever than anyone else.”

  “Boys or girls,” I said, uncomfortably remembering my handsome actor.

  “To resume. He was young enough to like the risk, and she offered him a flattering reward. He was supposed to copy a page at a time, as it was difficult to get at the book for long.”

  “Why do they even keep it, if it’s so dangerous?”

  Faryana? I opened the mental door a pinhole. Are you listening?

  I cannot not listen, as long as you wear my necklace. Her mental voice was wry.

  Do you know what book he’s talking about?

  We are constrained from talking about that.

  Of course she was. I shut the pinhole, as Hlanan went on, unaware of my quick mental exchange. “The Mage Council got involved in a . . . let’s say an intense debate. Very intense. Some thought the book ought to be destroyed. Others that it ought to be studied to develop antidote spells, for they don’t believe there was just one copy.”

  “Like there is never just one cockroach,” I said.

  He uttered a brief, soft laugh, then the humor faded. “Those who practice blood magic earn an instant death in most kingdoms. There were many in the Council who assumed it had successfully been stamped out a couple centuries ago, when the kings took the matter into their own hands, and began executing any accused of using blood magic.”

  “Thesreve decided to execute anyone doing magic, except licensed mages who go around and fix things, accompanied by armed guards,” I said.

  “Exactly. Thesreve was particularly hard hit many years ago, so they remained vigilant, but most had relaxed their concern. Other kingdoms permit certain spells, under tightly controlled circumstances, for what they consider justified legal or political reasons. Alezand is one, though I have been working on Rajanas to change that law. Anyway, about fifteen years ago, this book surfaced in the loot from Shinjan slavers who had been preying on islanders on the other side of the world. The duchess told this young scribe that the book was her family history, kept from her by some political trouble in the past.”

  “So he didn’t know it was magic?”

  “No. He thought he was copying out Ancient Shinjan records. Few scribes learn that language.”

  “He could just sneak in? They didn’t guard it?”

  “It was bound with wards. But she’d given him some kind of magical token that blocked wards, though he probably thought it was a luck charm. So he wafted right through, without knowing what danger he was in. How she got that . . .”

  “My guess is that there’s some young mage somewhere else who was bedazzled by a duchess who told him he was clever and comely and all the rest of it.”

  “No doubt. And now I wonder if that was Geric Lendan. Anyway, while the scribe was out with a party of friends one evening, I burned his pages, and left her house. I returned to Erev-li-Erval and reported what she was doing to the Council representative. I don’t know how stiff a fine she paid, or what lies she told to the Council, but even though this was ten years ago, she apparently never forgets a grudge.”

  “Was this the book you wanted me to steal?”

  “Yes.”

  “You wanted me to steal it from that Council?”

  “No, not at all! I got word not three days before we met you that the book had gone missing, and the Council sent out warnings to all mages of a certain level to be on the listen for signs of it. You’ll remember that Emperor Jardis Dhes-Andis threatened to be able to find you by a tracer spell.”

  “I haven’t forgotten,” I said. “I haven’t made the smallest shimmer since I left Rajanas’s city.”

  �
�Well, such a tracer spell was warded on that book, along with many other protections. Whoever took it transferred the book by magic to Finn, a small principality in the eastern mountains. It was near enough to Thann that I thought it might be worth investigating, in case the duchess possibly had anything to do with it. My thought was, you and I could travel as scribe and apprentice, and see if we could locate it. By then I hoped to convince you to go to the Council with me, where you could be safely enrolled in their training.”

  “Do you think Geric Lendan got on that yacht because he had the book?”

  “I do now. And oh, he must have enjoyed gloating.”

  “That book is sounding nastier with every mention. And you wanted me to steal it?”

  “I wanted you to help me search for it. After meeting you, I thought, if anyone can find that book, it’s a thief who knows magic.”

  “We. You said we, a moment ago.”

  “Do you think I would have sent you alone?”

  “I think you would not have trusted me alone,” I retorted.

  He said in a low, flat voice, “I apologize again for what I said the other day.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” I said in haste, and considered, saying slowly—finding my way toward the truth—“Though I don’t know what I did mean. When we were on the yacht, I didn’t like how you and Thianra were so ready to trust me. It made me uncomfortable.”

  “How?” His voice lightened a bit.

  “Because it made me feel I ought to be trustworthy, of course. I hated that sense of . . . of invisible bonds. But when I overheard you say you didn’t trust me, it felt even worse. And I know you explained. I understand everything, and yet here I was just now, trying to get you to repeat it all, as if making you repeat it would . . . make me feel more trusted? But that’s not how to make trust, is it?”

  “I sensed something of your dilemma by the second day we were together on the yacht,” he said, the note of constraint gone. “Rajanas agreed, but—getting back to the book—he thought you would not be able to resist stealing it and then vanishing, to offer it somewhere else to the highest bidder. He added that he would have done that, when he was a street urchin, after his family was murdered in retaliation for some of his grandfather’s excesses, and he found himself dumped on the streets of Fara Bay, when he was small.”